This type of a substrate conveyance device carries substrates such as, for example, semiconductors wafer into a plurality of processing chambers by a conveyance arm device so as to perform process processings such as etching and film forming in parallel, thereby improving a throughput.
In such a substrate conveyance device, when a wafer process processing is terminated, a cleaning processing may be performed, for example, by generating plasma in a processing chamber after a processed wafer is carried out from the processing chamber, in order to maintain a condition within the processing chamber by properly removing, for example, a reaction product.
However, when the substrate conveyance device is caused to wait while holding an unprocessed wafer since a next wafer cannot be carried into the processing chamber where the cleaning processing is being performed, the throughput is degraded. In connection with this point, Patent Document 1 discloses a conveyance device in which a predetermined operation of the conveyance device is executed such that the conveyance device is operated even during the cleaning of a processing chamber to perform carry-out/in in relation to the load-lock chamber, thereby causing the conveyance device to exhibit the original throughput of the conveyance device.